Young Knit Chick

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Like many people, money is tight so I planned ahead and decided that I wanted to make a lot of my Christmas gifts this year. Given that its cold at Christmas in the North East, I ordered about $50 worth of sock yarn from knit picks when they were having a sale over the summer. Of course having only made a few pairs of socks before I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Working on and off throughout the summer I managed to knit up quite a few pairs of socks, but the more socks I knit the longer the list of people I wanted to give socks to became.

I knit lots of socks...

.

Little Socks...

And long socks...

Birthday Socks...

And stripped socks...

Clearly too many socks, I have become the Dr. Seuss of socks. Although I still have a long list of people I love who I want to make socks for, I have to find a new project. In line with my goals for this blog I have a new project in mind, still a Christmas gift but just a quick step away from my sock project.

Monday, September 14, 2009

As a knitter you always remember when you learned to knit. I was about 10 and a friend's mother noticed me watching her a little bit to close, so she decided that she was going to teach us. This is the other thing as a knitter, you always want to help someone else find themselves by teaching them to knit. Little did this woman know, but she helped me find myself that day, and everyday since then when I pick up needles I feel that calm come over me all over again. But being that I was 10 I made about 900 ugly cheap scarves that my family lovingly accepted holiday after holiday, and a few ill-fated blankets, I mean does a baby blanket really need to cover the whole baby?!?

Being born into such a supportive family (I say that jokingly here, but really they are supportive) my mom suggested that I learn to knit something a bit more practical than 900 scarves. But as a non-knitter (I will someday convert her) she believed that I should just make a quick jump from knitting scarves to making her a cable-knit sweater.

Fast-forward about nine years to Me age 21 working her first full-time job as an intern. Here is when you have to believe in fate, my supervisor was a knitter, a good one at that and to top it off three women from my work were pregnant so my supervisor was knitting for them. One day she came in with the cutest baby hat I had ever seen. A few years older than my last knitting lessons, I decided that now was my chance to figure it out and be the knitter I always wanted to be. So that night I went home bought my first set of double-pointed needles and.... made the ugliest hat ever. (Notice that little point at the top, that wasn't on purpose, exactly)

But that was it I was it, I was in love all over again. Since then I have come a long way.

Including a some very cute baby hats.

But, I have a long way to go and millions of projects left to start, and hopefully finish. So here I am trying to bring knitting to a new generation and helping other people like me find their inner knitter.